


A Thousand Lives I've Searched

by LinnetMelody



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Community: kinkme_merlin, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-01
Updated: 2010-09-01
Packaged: 2017-10-11 09:29:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinnetMelody/pseuds/LinnetMelody
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for kinkme_merlin, for the prompt: "Arthur/Merlin, modern day angst. Arthur finds Merlin in the modern world but is devastated when he sees that Merlin has found someone new and appears to have moved on with his life, totally forgetting about Arthur."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Thousand Lives I've Searched

The dreams had always had his face.

Different expressions, of course, but always the same face. Dark hair. Bright eyes. Protruding cheekbones and a sharply chiseled chin. By the time Arthur was twenty and out among the world, he knew the face in his dreams more intimately than he knew his own. He knew how the eyes crinkled as he laughed. Knew which way the eyes would roll in exasperation, and exactly how far the head would tilt with curiosity.

So when he saw the face glance out at him from behind a menu, through the front window of a restaurant, he stopped breathing.

Stopped walking, too, apparently, as the woman right behind him plowed into his back and sent him sprawling.

"Oi! Watch it!" She stepped over his legs and Arthur scrabbled upright, palms stinging where he'd caught himself on the pavement. He paid it no mind, eyes already searching out the spot in the window where, for a moment, he could have sworn he'd seen ---

Oh sweet Christ.

The man with the face – The Face from his dreams – was sitting calmly at the table, accepting a cup of tea from the waitress. Arthur watched as his lips formed words -- _Thank you_ \-- and then pursed to blow a bit across the top of the liquid. And apparently just dreaming about That Face didn't quite incorporate all the reactions his body would normally have, since his head started swimming and his knees wobbled. Arthur shook his head, eyes closing briefly, and leaned against the brick wall to catch his breath.

He was here.

He was _here._ Oh, thank the gods and heaven and Jesus and Allah and everyone. The words echoed in his ears, pounding in time with his elevated heart. _I found him. I found him. I found him!_

A swelling feeling in his chest rose and Arthur opened his mouth to release a short, hysterical laugh. The odd looks thrown his way by other pedestrians he ignored. His eyes sought out the window, even as his fingers fished into his pocket. The man with The Face was wiping his lips with a serviette, scooting sideways along the bench in preparation to leave. Arthur didn't take his eyes off him as he hit speed dial.

"Camelot Suites, how can---"

Arthur talked over the top of him, his words slamming together in one long stream. "Lance, I need you to cancel everything I had on the books this morning. I won't be coming in today."

"Won't be com--- are you alright? What is it, what's wrong?"

"Nothing. Everything's fine. I just – it's complicated." The man with The Face finished paying and pushed the door to the restaurant open, stepping outside. Arthur felt his laugh burbling up into his throat again and had to swallow, hard. "I may be dreaming. I may be slightly insane. But I will not be in the office today."

Arthur could almost see Lance cock a dark eyebrow at that, could already hear his fingers tapping away at his keyboard. "Good point, sir, you being insane and trying to work may have disastrous consequences in some of your meetings. I'll reschedule them." He paused and Arthur almost missed the mumbled "…wish _I_ was dreaming, safe and warm and cuddled up next to---" before he snapped the phone shut and started following after the man.

***

He couldn't remember his name.

This bothered Arthur not in the slightest back when he thought he was just dreaming. When his dream-self and the man sat next to a campfire and watched the stars through the trees. When he'd watch the man at a small wooden table, blanket wrapped nearly up to his ridiculous ears to ward off the chill, tearing chunks of bread with his fingers and chewing sleepily. When Arthur had woken some mornings with a sore throat and the memory of the man, clammy and pale and covered in blood, and only his pulse stuttering in his ears in time with the shouted words. _Live. Don't leave me. Don't die. Live! Please. God, I need you. Stay…_

When he was dreaming, names hadn't mattered. He knew that face, knew that walk, knew that smile. He'd known that soul so intimately. He'd never needed to call out.

Now, of course, was a different story.

Arthur kept up with the man, but just barely. His long legs seemed to eat the ground while he weaved and dodged in and out among the people. He couldn't ask him to stop, he couldn't call his name because he _didn't fucking know it_. He fumed and cursed under his breath as he was forced to shoulder aside people that the man with The Face had darted nimbly around.

The morning sun was bright and hot and Arthur was sweating before he'd gone four blocks. His quarry turned sharply down a side street and Arthur was desperately trying to shed his suit jacket and his tie so that he would maybe not stick out like a sore thumb or turn into an Arthur-colored puddle of melted goo and damn it, his hair was in his eyes again, he needed to get that cut soon, and he blew it up and out of his face and glanced ahead and – _oh shit where'd he go?!_

He nearly wrenched his back, twisting around quickly as he frantically scanned the street. The pit of his stomach ached with worry, with desperation, a sick fear worming its way through his innards. "Don't--" he choked out. _Don't go. Don't leave me. Come back!_

Movement drew his eye upwards, however, and he swayed dizzily in relief as he saw the man climbing the outside stairs to the third floor of a skinny brick building. He reached into his pocket, searching for keys perhaps, and Arthur started toward the stairs himself, opening his mouth to shout, to call out _Hello_ or _Excuse me_ or even just _Wait…_

The door opened for him.

Arthur's breath froze in his chest, he stumbled to a halt as a man – a different man – walked out of the door and smiled at the man with The Face. He couldn't hear what was said, but he could see both smiles, could watch as each reached out for the other and pulled themselves into what looked like a very involved clinch. Dark heads together, arms around each others' waists, affection in every line of their bodies as they turned and headed back inside. The door closed behind them.

Arthur wasn't aware of dropping his jacket to the dirty street. He didn't feel his toes bark roughly against the curb. He felt very light, very distant, and the images in his mind were of his dreams. The face smiling at him; raising his arms in triumph while his mouth opened on a shout. He saw deep green moss and thick tree trunks and the man flailing his arms comically while he tried to climb over them. He saw long fingers stroking the soft nose of a horse; holding a silver goblet out to him; folding a worn and weathered shirt carefully. He saw blue eyes darken in annoyance; squint blearily into early-morning sunshine; flash with golden light and power as lightning stormed around him. Arthur swallowed roughly as he saw those lips, chapped from dehydration; teeth bitten into the bottom lip until blood swelled; stretched wet and hot and loose around his---

Smiling at someone else.

***

Arthur, later, never remembered climbing the stairs. He had no idea how long he stood outside, inches from the rectangular wooden panel that separated him from … from everything. The sick feeling in his stomach was a distant roil, unaffected by his dry swallowing. He never remembered knocking.

He remembered the door swinging wide.

The man, the _other man,_ looked curiously into his face. "Yes?"

Arthur blinked at him a moment, his mouth opening once, then closing. "Um," he said coherently. "Uh…" The man's eyebrows rose slightly as Arthur cleared his throat and looked down, trying desperately to think of anything to say. Well, anything polite. His brain kept coming up with all these words that he hoped would stay behind his teeth. _He's mine. MINE. You can't take him._

"Are you alright, mate?"

His teeth unclenched. "I---"

"Will, who is it?"

The other man – _Will, what a horrible name_ \-- glanced back into the room. "No idea," he called. "He can't seem to talk to me."

"Oh really? Maybe we could ask him to teach that to you, I could finally get some peace and ---" The man with The Face walked around the corner, into view, and froze. Arthur could see his hand wrapped around a glass and those eyes – those deep, expressive, wonderful blue eyes – wide and riveted on his face. The sound of the glass smashing to bits on the floor and Will's yell barely registered.

Arthur knew he wouldn't be able to speak so he didn't even try. He stared. He gazed, he didn't want to blink, drinking in the sight of that wonderful angular face and letting the other man stare right back. Watched those lips part, the flick of a pink tongue swiping across them and didn't care that the ache in his chest was wound so tight he couldn't breathe.

_You're here. I found you. Mine. Don't leave me. Please, stay…_

"—glass everywhere, for Christ's sake. I'm staying out here until it's binned, there's no way you're going to get—"

Those dark eyes – _harder, Arthur, please, I won't break, just like that, yessss_—wrenched away from Arthur's gaze and he swore he felt the physical snap of it. The other man looked to the side and said "Will, I need you to leave."

"—all the shards out of the carpet, it'll…. What?" Will blinked.

But he was already being shoved farther out the door, boots tossed onto the landing and a thin wallet thrust into his hands. "Take this," Arthur's man – his voice, so clear, _mine_ – said and his words lilted lyrically and it sounded absolutely divine to Arthur's ears, "and get a bus down across town. Stay with Hunith for a week or so, I'll ring you."

Will's shocked look traveled from one face to the other, and Arthur barely got a glance at his expression before he felt a hand on his arm and he was pulled steadily inside. The door closed and clicked quietly.

Arthur could see the nape of his neck, the hair curling softly at the ends and around his ears. The man spun back to face him and froze, again, the space between them small and shrinking. He licked his lips again and Arthur bit back a tortured groan.

"I found you." No idea who said it, it didn't matter, and Arthur reached out his hands and cradled those cheekbones in his palms. He tugged, gently, the ache in his chest still wound up and still winding and those long fingers were circling his wrists, not resisting as their breaths mingled and matched and fused.

Sweet Jesus, this was better. Better than dreams. Better than any fantasy he'd thought up. Those lips were mobile and moving and wet and parted so that he could delve deep and taste and take and treasure the feel of teeth with his tongue. A whimper emerged from the man's throat and his body just fucking _melted_ into him and Arthur braced his feet and took the weight gladly. He growled, deepening the kiss and felt the hard knot under his ribs loosening with the answering moan.

Lips sensitized and burning, he pulled back to eye his work with satisfaction. The man was limp in his arms, eyes unfocused and heated, hands twisted tightly into Arthur's shirt. A blink cleared the haze and that smile – that gorgeous fucking smile – _again, mine, stay with me, just for me_ – took his breath with its brilliance. He felt like he was sinking, gladly drowning in the deep blue that was that amazing look, he felt strong and smart and like he could lead knights into battle, take on an entire country, as long as he had those eyes shining trustingly up into his.

He cleared his throat. "What… what do I call you?"

Lips curled farther, arms wound possessively, possessing, and there was a glint of gold in those eyes as the man with the face of Arthur's dreams replied. "Yours."


End file.
